Is Rep. Dent a centrist or conservative? Depends on who you ask.

Colby ItkowitzCall Washington Bureau

Separate congressional ratings show two different Charlie Dents.

In one, the National Journal's annual vote scores, Dent literally falls in the dead center of his House of Representatives colleagues. His votes in 2012 make him 49.8 percent liberal and 50.2 percent conservative, according to the ranking.

But the American Conservative Union, which hosts the annual CPAC weekend of conservative celebrities, named Dent a "true conservative," giving him an 80 percent score based on 25 votes cast last year. By comparison, in 2011, he received a 52 percent from the organization.

Both groups' rankings were released Thursday.

The National Journal has a decades-old system of analyzing and weighing roll call votes to determine members’ ideology, as explained here. The ACU has been handing out its conservative scores since 1971 as determined by a handful of selected votes that can be viewed here.

Dent, the 15th district's Republican congressman - who chairs the U.S. House's caucus of moderate GOP members called The Tuesday Group - cast just five out of 25 votes deemed "not conservative" by the ACU.

Among them was voting not to eliminate federal funding for the Economic Development Agency, the Legal Services Corporation, National Science Foundation political science research and Community Development Block Grants.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey was more consistent. He received a 100 percent score from the ACU and was ranked the 4th most conservative senator by the National Journal.